Sunday, December 2, 2007

Q-School: The Cut Has Been Made

And it was at +6. Paige Mackenzie missed it by 2 shots. Nikki Garrett and Beth Bauer by 8. And Kiran Matharu by 11. Amy Yang at +4 (T48), Na Ri Kim at +3 (T44), Maru Martinez and Na-Yeon Choi at +2 (T37), and Nina Reis, Virada Nirapathpongporn, and Song Hee Kim at +1 (T27) will be fighting to remain inside the top 52 and maybe make a move into the top 17 after the end of tomorrow's round. It's a real pressure cooker for Yang and Choi in particular, although I'm unclear exactly what kind of non-exempt status rookies SH Kim and Martinez and Super Sophs NR Kim, Reis, and Nirapathpongporn already have. Will they be able to pull out all the stops and go for every pin in an effort to catapult themselves into exempt status for 2008, or will they have to play sensibly just to secure a more-secure non-exempt status than they already earned during the 2007 season?

Meanwhile, the other 6 players I've been following who are already inside the top 15--

1 Jane Park 65-70-71-68 274 -14
2 Su A Kim 70-72-70-68 280 -8
2 Hee Young Park 72-67-74-67 280 -8
4 Ya Ni Tseng 70-73-72-66 281 -7

5 Meredith Duncan 69-71-71-71 282 -6
5 Carolina Llano 69-71-69-73 282 -6
5 Taylor Leon 73-71-68-70 282 -6
5 Ashleigh Simon 70-70-72-70 282 -6

9 Sophie Giquel 72-70-71-70 283 -5
9 Louise Friberg 71-73-71-68 283 -5
11 Liz Janangelo 70-71-70-73 284 -4
11 Kelli Kuehne 67-71-70-76 284 -4
11 Nicole Hage 71-72-68-73 284 -4
11 Beth Allen 71-71-71-71 284 -4
11 Russy Gulyanamitta 69-72-72-71 284 -4

--will try to play "catch me if you can." There are 15 golfers within 4 shots of this lead pack and only 2 more exempt spots to go around. Perhaps only the leading Parks can truly breathe easy during the LPGA's version of musical chairs that begins a little later this morning, but with just about everyone starting on the front and a good number of people starting on the back having broken 70 at least once this week, we could be seeing a lot of volatility on the leader board. Good luck to all!

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